Growth and Settlement in the U.S.

In sum, the issue of growth management is not one of stopping economic growth, but one of restraining profligately resource-consuming sectors of the economy. Likewise, it is not an issue of stopping urban growth, but one of restraining urban dispersal. The latter will have to go far beyond the current efforts to merely phase or cluster suburban development and to protect areas of critical environmental importance, if it is to become effective. Instruments for accurately targeting public and private investment in new construction on resource-conserving locations and urban forms will have to be devised. A broad range of taxation policies will have to be revised to the same end.

To tackle these issues, it is necessary to understand population and settlement trends in the nation as they have evolved under the existing rules of the game. It is to contribute to this understanding that the present study was prepared. It will have to be followed by extensive work on the structure of the economy and the effects of reallocating resources, and on the structure of urban settlement and its relationship to both resources and human behavior.